


Seesaw

by fialka



Series: The Playground Series [1]
Category: The X-Files
Genre: F/M, hooboy
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2009-03-06
Updated: 2009-03-06
Packaged: 2017-10-03 22:56:14
Rating: Mature
Warnings: Creator Chose Not To Use Archive Warnings
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,978
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23135
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/fialka/pseuds/fialka
Summary: <blockquote class="userstuff">
              <p>All in all, it's been one hell of a year.</p><p>Post Orison / Sein und Seit / Closure<br/>Original posting 6 March 2000</p>
            </blockquote>





	Seesaw

_Happiness is equilibrium. Shift your weight.  
~Tom Stoppard, "The Real Thing"_

_   
_

She's not surprised at the knock on her door, just in time for dinner. Maybe she was half expecting it - the pot of spaghetti sauce simmering on the back burner is far too full for one. Lately, she's taken to cooking too much. She supposes it's a positive change from the days she could hardly be bothered to cook at all.

Positive, negative, charges, poles. She's been thinking a lot about poles since they got back from California. Fake North Poles and fake fat Santas and sacks of toys that hold the bodies of infants. She's been thinking about people who die and people who shouldn't and wondering why little girls vanish while old men who stink of smoke and lies keep reappearing when least expected.

It's a pointless thought, company for the others she has too often these days. She's taken to keeping her Bible by the bed, as if it could ward off those mental demons. She can't remember when she started doing that, and she finds it faintly embarrassing. An overt display of piety, of a faith she's not sure she still shares. She rarely opens the book, but she likes the soft weight of it in her hands. Sometimes she'll sit, just holding it, for hours. She'd like to pray for her soul, but at the moment, she can't.

It's lying on the couch right now, though she can't remember how it got there. She really should put it away before she answers the door - the Bible disturbs him, makes him worry that she's coming apart again.

Frankly, she doubts that she could. She's been broken and put back together so many times she's made more of the glue now than herself. Anyway, her crisis is over. His side is sinking, forcing hers to rise again. His mother is dead.

He's going to bring her a file: a werewolf, a zombie, a man who's been abducted by dolphins. Something impossible, ridiculous. Something he knows will make her roll her eyes and purse her mouth and be Scully for him. He's going to bring her a file and his double handful of broken pieces and ask her to glue him back together. And she will, any way she can.

Another knock, a bit more emphatic. She stands on her toes, gun in hand, and peers through the peephole. Yes, it's him staring back, face distorted through the tiny lens.

He passes inside with barely a nod, then he's taking off his jacket, hanging it next to hers. There's no file in his hands, and that surprises her. It's been a long time since it's been just him, just her, no case to talk about. The last time, she was immobile on the couch, her middle swathed in bandages.

No, that's not quite true. There was a week of just him, just her, in the barren clutter of his man-smelling apartment. The first week of her most recent mandatory suspension. Seven days of stunned Scully and Mulder playing mama, fussing and feeding till he mentioned vacancies in high-security buildings and she went home, slipping out one morning while he slept. Some streak of stubbornness got her in the door, but that was as far as she got. He found her there an hour later, standing frozen in her living room, keys still dangling from her hand.

She let the Gunmen do their thing after that, installing triple locks and infrared sensors and god knows what else. They even tidied up all the broken glass and candles. It had been a nice thought, but it hadn't kept out the smoking man, and since then she's given up on the idea of ever feeling safe again. Maybe that's why she keeps the Bible as handy as she keeps her gun. Nothing like a little extra protection. At this point she'll take it from anywhere, except from him.

She doesn't know exactly when they stopped being able to protect each other, but there it is and here he is, and it's her turn to be mama now.

She finds him in the living room, staring at the couch. She's forgotten to hide the Bible. She scoops it up and deposits it in her desk drawer before continuing into the kitchen. He'll have to sit and flip tracks on the CD player while she finishes dinner, since the TV is in her bedroom now. She rubs her temples, already dreading his selection. Still, she'll listen to The Elvis Collection a hundred times if it will make him feel better, though she won't tell him she bought that CD because she still doesn't sleep well and it helps, to play it in the living room when she's going to bed.

Tonight he skips the music and comes up behind her as she's carefully stirring the sauce. He's started doing that again, standing too close, like he did when they first met. She knows he was only trying to intimidate her, but secretly she'd liked it, even then. Liked feeling the heat from his body, the little shiver that went up her spine whenever he came too near. She likes her men a little possessed, a little dangerous. Mulder is her type, no doubt about it.

But the intimidation thing, that stopped years ago, didn't it? She's not sure why he's started it again, but there he is, pressed against her back, ostensibly sniffing the sauce. In reality, he seems to be nuzzling her hair. She tilts her head away, slipping out from the place he'd like to trap her. It's not his closeness she minds, in fact she's rather missed it. It's the hair. She's developed a thing about her hair, and despite the fact that she knows exactly why, she can't seem to help it. She keeps thinking about dyeing it brown, about shaving her head. She can't do either, of course. Mulder's blind as a bat right now, but Skinner is still watching her, alert for any signs of distress.

She reaches for the sugar bowl, excusing herself. She needs a bit of sugar anyway; the sauce is starting to go bitter. He steps back to let her get to the stove, but as soon as she's there, he's pressed up against her again. This time he surprises her by reaching around and laying his hand over her abdomen. That's all at first, just his hand resting quietly on her body, only his thumb moving, stroking the gunshot scar just below her ribs. She wonders if that's what he intends, if he's trying to tell her something, or if he's forgotten it's even there.

Lately she's noticed there's a curve below her navel, a softness she just can't get rid of no matter what she eats or how much exercise she gets. She's getting older. Soon it'll all start going soft and heading south. She wishes sometimes that she'd been a different person, that she'd let him enjoy her body while it was still smooth and firm and attractive. She looks like she's been through a war now, scars on her front and back and face and neck. Another reason to avoid having other lovers. She doesn't want to be asked how she got like that.

Mulder's other hand comes to mirror the first and she realizes, sick, that he's holding her with his hands around that curve, the way a man might hold his pregnant wife. When she can breathe again, she sees that she's six feet away and Mulder is standing by the stove, his arms still bent, his eyes vacant.

This isn't how it's supposed to happen. This isn't how it ever happens. He's not supposed to ask, he's supposed to just take what he needs. She'll give it to him, surely he knows that by now. Surely that's why he's here.

He moves in her direction, but he only reaches for the basil. The oregano. He can cook quite well, though he too rarely bothers. The first three days she stayed with him were a relative banquet. She was impressed, but she could barely eat it. The fourth day his dinner was grandma's chicken soup. Good old Jewish penicillin. He promised it would bring her appetite back.

She refrained from commenting that he'd never known his Jewish grandmother, that he'd probably got the damn recipe off the internet. They ate the soup sitting side by side on his couch while Lauren Bacall put her lips together and blew for Humphrey Bogart. By the time Bogie learned to whistle back, she had her own lips together with Mulder between them, moaning loudly as he came into her mouth.

Oh yeah, this Catholic girl knows a thing or two about handling snakes. What she doesn't know about are mornings after, and weeks after, and what on earth she's supposed to do now. It's one thing to have him in her hand, to take him in her mouth. Quite another to take him inside herself. A fine distinction only Catholic boys and Bill Clinton can truly appreciate. One is fooling around, the other is a promise.

They've been fooling around for months now.

He offers her the spoon, his hand cupped under it. She comes back, tastes the sauce. Yes, it's better. He bends to pull the spaghetti pot out from under the counter. He's at home in her kitchen, having been in and out of here for weeks after he brought her home from New York. Fussing and feeding, playing mama and papa and bossy big brother when she tried to do anything but lie around and mend. Here's Mulder, making sure she doesn't lift, carry, stretch to reach the top shelf. Here's Scully, ready to rip herself open just to prove she doesn't need his help.

The first time she touched him, he was sleeping on her couch. What could she say? Life is fragile and short and her own had just nearly bled out of a hole in her stomach. It was sweet to see his surprise mixed with sleepy pleasure as he woke and found her sitting by his side, hand moving lazily under the blanket.

She made no excuse. He smiled as if he didn't mind, and got up to make their breakfast.

His first time, he was still in the hospital, his head barely mended. She was bending over him, adjusting his dressing, when she felt something slide softly between her legs. Mulder's hand, just his fingertips, rising slowly up the inside of her thigh. She tucked his hand back under the covers, but when she looked into his eyes she found something there she understood. The next day she arrived wearing a skirt, and the day after that. The day after that she bought a pair of thigh high stockings and when his fingers slipped inside her it took all of her control not to cry out loud.

The water is boiling now and Mulder is slowly sinking the spaghetti. He likes to play with it, drawing it in and out, watching it melt. It occurs to her that this is what he does to her. Long fingers sliding in and out until her body softens, gives in to him. It's taken her a while, but she's growing comfortable with that. Of course, they never take it any further. One more step and there's no way out.

The spaghetti is set and he reaches for her, undoing her trousers. He likes to take her in her work clothes, that's why she's still in her suit, why she's kept on her heels. If they're standing up, which they usually are, they need the extra few inches.

He pulls her clothing all the way down and turns her around, using his knee to spread her legs. She feels like she's about to be frisked. It's not the way this usually goes, and she's not quite sure she likes it. She doesn't want to be taken like this. Not half-naked, bent over her kitchen counter. Not before they've even really kissed.

Then she feels something warm and wet between her legs and sighs, relief and pleasure mixing together. It's only his mouth. He's come over for dinner, and she's the aperitif. It's been a while, but it's happened before. With any luck, it will happen again.

She pushes a heavy rack of knives out of her way and transfers her weight onto the counter. It's a new position for both of them and she wriggles a bit until they find the right angle. It hardly takes a minute. They have this down, like their best investigative technique. Theory and practice, method and madness. She's always been fond of this act, but she never dreamed he'd be such an enthusiastic partner.

He's being very, very good right now, and she forgets to worry about their dinner, about his mental state, about whether or not he's going to suddenly stand up and ram himself into her, if tonight is the night one of them drags the other past the point of no return. There's only that soft, insistent tongue moving around and around and in and out until he's everywhere and everything and her legs are collapsing and she can't get enough air. Then suddenly she's gone. Boom, flash, rocket into the stratosphere. She never knows how he does that last bit, how he takes her from mmmsogood to ohmygod without any discernible transition.

She's down now, flat out on the counter and she feels him chuckling softly against her back. It's a nice sound, very unexpected considering the the last few days and all that's happened. He hasn't got his weight on her and she thinks she'd actually like to steal a brief nap, just like this, with him as her blanket. She's suddenly completely worn out.

Then he's gone and she's left to the part she likes least, the one where she has to straighten her clothes and get on with whatever they'd been doing when it happened.

She's facing him now, but instead of dropping his eyes and moving away, he kneels down and draws her clothes back up for her. He even buttons her trousers again. There's a look on his face that isn't the one he normally wears at these moments. That one is more bemused, even a little triumphant, though not enough to piss her off. He knows exactly how much he can get away with, and post- cunnilingual bliss always doubles his credit. No, this is something else, though it isn't till he runs his hands through her hair that she recognizes what it is.

It's the same expression he had the first night she stayed with him, when he walked into the bathroom and gently pried the scissors from her hand.

She's been cutting her hair for quite a while now, actually, though she doesn't think he knows that. Just the ends, just a quarter inch, maybe half an inch when things have been really bad. Enough to let off some steam, the way other people will take razor blades and make tiny, shallow cuts in their skin. She could never do something that obviously desperate, but her hair does keep getting shorter and shorter. She's not sure how much she would have taken off that night, if he hadn't walked in.

He rubs his thumb across her lips and the sweetness of it makes her lose her breath. But she's sure he must be completely unhinged when he kneels again and slides her shoes off, gently massaging one foot, then the other.

When he stands, she barely comes up to his shoulder. It makes her feel unbalanced, uncomfortably naked. She wants to put her shoes back on, but he takes her by the hand and leads her to the bathroom mirror. She looks and sees Mulder, standing next to a short, rumpled stranger. This isn't her, hair falling into her face, eyes bright, cheeks flushed. She isn't this wild. She isn't this vivid. She turns away, but before she can escape, he catches her face between his hands and kisses her. No, not her, not dull Agent Scully of the black suit and endless droning explanations. That woman got her peck on New Year's Eve. This kiss is deep and rich and luscious. It's for the woman in the mirror, the one he wants her to be.

The one he makes of her.

The thought strikes her so hard it takes away her knees. He catches her and holds her close and she understands now: this is how he sees her. This is how he's always seen her, all the years she's been certain this part of herself had starved to death, or gotten lost, or was never there to begin with. This is why she felt so disappointed on New Year's Eve, and why he hasn't kissed her since. Agent Scully is not a very kissable person.

Now, Dana Scully...that might be something else. Fighting Irish Dana Scully, who punched the Admiral's grandson in the nose when she was five years old, who graduated sixth in her class at Quantico despite being a woman, despite being so short she could hardly be seen behind the lines of bright new agents with names from A to R. That Dana Scully has fire, has passion, has life still in her.

That Dana Scully has Fox Mulder.

He kisses her again, lightly this time, and goes off to check the overboiled pasta. When she's come back from making friends with the mirror - an acquaintance she broke some five years ago - he's got the table set with her best china and crystal, the stuff she keeps in the back of the cupboard and never uses. He's found something else back there, two elegant silver candlesticks. It isn't until he meets her eyes that he remembers why there aren't any candles.

She feels the evening teeter. If either of them backs away now, the other is going to go crashing to the ground. She holds her breath as he goes rummaging in her utility drawer and comes up with a thin, sturdy flashlight. It just fits into one of the candlesticks.

He turns it on and looks up at her, and she sees he's holding his breath too. She wonders suddenly if he knows what this china is for and why she doesn't use it.

He turns the lights out and comes back to their corner of the table. "I've been thinking about some things," he begins. "About the first time we ever really talked."

She can't help stiffening a bit. She doesn't want to talk about this. Not tonight, maybe not ever. She's never going to be able to swallow some mumbo- jumbo about walk-ins and Samantha living in the starlight. She's glad he feels at peace about it, but to her, the case is still open. It will probably always be open. And sometimes it's better not to have all the answers.

"I think," he says, lifting her face so he can see it, "I think whatever happened, whatever you or I choose to believe about it, what I've finally realized is that Samantha is gone. And I'm nearly forty years old."

He hesitates, and the light from the one flashlight casts a strange upturned shadow on his face. It reminds her of a dashboard light a long time ago, back before she really knew him. A night when he told her never to call him Fox.

"I think," he starts to say, but she touches his mouth and stops him. She picks up their plates and takes them to the stove, fills them with spaghetti. She figures they're both going to need some serious energy for this. When she turns around again there's a ring lying on her placemat and he's looking at her like he expects to get his dinner over his head.

"What is this supposed to be?" She's trying so hard to keep her voice level it almost comes out a whisper.

"Come on, Scully. Surely you know a Beta Reticulan Secret Decoder Ring when you see one?"

She looks at him, but his face is blank. With Mulder that can mean anything from teasing to terror.

She gives him his plate and picks up the ring, sees something written inside the band.

"What does it say?"

"Well, that's the thing about a decoder ring. It's not much fun without a message to decode, is it?"

She puts down her own plate and looks closer at the nonsense symbols. Two words. She can't decide whether the sudden roiling in her stomach is nausea or giddiness.

"I wanted to give it to you last year. Shit happened."

Shit doesn't begin to describe what's happened to them since last year. Shit is where they were. She's not sure where they are now but so far it's taken a gunshot wound, a round of brain surgery, one mother and Samantha to get here.

All in all, it's been one hell of a year.

"I think..." He stumbles, breathes, tries again. "I think I'm ready to grow up now."

She expects to panic. She always thought she would. She always thought she'd run like hell if it came down to this.

Funny, but she's not in the mood to run. Not tonight. Tonight she wants to be a boring old married couple, sitting down to eat spaghetti and arguing over which movie to watch and going to bed and making love and waking up together. For them, it would be something unbelievably weird and different.

"Doesn't it say somewhere that Reticulan wedding ceremonies take seven terrestrial years?"

He smiles, slowly. He's beginning to breathe again.

"Damn," he says. "You figured it out."

She holds the ring up to the light. It's garish plastic, so of course it doesn't glow, but she turns her hand this way and that, as if it does.

"I can make it real." His voice carries a choked tenderness she doesn't think she's ever heard from anyone. It makes her stomach drop into... well, yes, right into there.

"No," she answers. About this, she's absolutely certain. No priests, no church, no government involvement. No mother driving her crazy making it all too grand, no justice of the peace making it cheap and furtive. "No, I don't want that. I don't need that."

His face is beginning to sag, beginning to get that left by the side of the road look. Not the one he puts on to coax her into investigating Big Blue or human parasites or goatsucking illegal immigrants. This is the real one. This is the boy that got lost, the one that's going to need more than a wedding night to catch up to his forty-year-old self.

She smiles at him, at the ring with its silly grey alien head. "I just want us to be ourselves, the way we've always been. I'm still Scully and you're still Mulder, and the rest...." She trails off, not quite knowing where to go with that. She's not used to talking about these kinds of things with him.

He takes the ring out of her hand and slides it onto her finger. Third finger, left hand. Remarkably, it fits.

Of course it fits. What else could possibly fit the two of them?

They look at each other and something incalculable shifts. Something as small as a virus, as large as the universe. Yes, they are still themselves, but they are this now too; this grinning foolishly at each other, this eating dinner in a happy silence, this leaning over now and then to steal a little kiss.

She can't wait to see what happens next. 

~~~

Feedback is like chocolate - not necessary for life, but awfully yummy when you get some: fialka62@yahoo.com  



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